Summary:
Chapter 7 talks about a lot of different topics related to sex, from effects of STIs to influences on sexual behavior to defining terms related to sex. It covers types of orientations like homo/heterosexuals and types of sex that go along with specific orientations and even cultures. Some places don’t allow kissing in public or even use kissing as a sign of affection. The chapter also focuses on how much young people actually know about sex and where they hear information about it from. Some sources are movies, the internet, parents, peers, and education in school. Other things that are discussed are reasons both for why someone would choose to be abstinent and why they wouldn’t and the difference between people of different ages making those choices. Many people in their 70’s and beyond are still sexually active, but it does decline in frequency compared to younger adults. Lastly, the chapter talks about faithfulness, the ways people can cheat on their partners, whether it be emotional or physical or through the internet, and the reasons couples might have fidelity problems.
New/Interesting Material:
Something I thought was interesting was the box on page 171 about female genital mutilation/cutting. I’ve only ever heard about male circumcision. From this section, female circumcision seems pretty dangerous and completely unnecessary. It shows how much of an influence culture can have on sex though.
Concern/Question:
I think the part titled “Preventing STIs” needs to be rewritten or removed, not removed because it’s not important, but because some of the other sections also imply ways that you can practice safe sex/prevent STIs. For such an important topic, it only has one paragraph specifically dedicated to it.
I agree with you on that section. I feel like the they threw that in there last minute without actually putting any real effort into it. I do think that parents need to become more educated, but the book provides to ideas of possible methods how to accomplish that.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that the reason they made the section so short is primarily since they did not really incorporate very much sociology into this section (compared to other sections in my opinion). I think that is the reason that they made the section a bit short anyhow, rather than skipping over an important topic (though a good solution would be to tie it into sociology more and expand upon it haha).
ReplyDeleteKarl Wahlen